It’s certainly easy to look at aspects of Bong Joon-ho’s filmography and conclude that he’s nihilistic. He’s clear-eyed about the evils of our world and the uphill battles that humanity have in defeating it. And yet, there is always an element of hope woven throughout his scripts, however unrealistic the prospect may be. Mickey 17‘s view of a dystopian future – the human race led hopelessly and helplessly into despair by a dumb, vainglorious megalomaniac – would probably feel hackneyed if Donald Trump hadn’t won his second election. We’re in an age that defies metaphor, however extreme, so Mickey 17 gets to arrive in theaters over a year after it was supposed to and become more relevant in the process. Does director Bong still hate the world and the institutions that it’s built upon? Yes. Does he still believe a better world is possible? Shockingly, also yes.

This is the Oscar-winner’s first film since the Best Picture-winning Parasite in 2019. The sensation of that film still feels like a fever dream. That Bong’s aggressive anti-subtlety could somehow become mainstream enough for the Academy Awards felt as revolutionary as Moonlight winning just three years prior. (Or perhaps it was the first of several examples that the Academy is no longer mainstream at all; see the sex work dramedy Anora winning Best Picture just last week.) Parasite being a remarkable box office success as well meant that director Bong had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted next; a blank check, if you will. Mickey 17 doesn’t feel like a Heaven’s Gate-level vanity project, even if the trades are treating it like one. It’s a surprisingly sweet action comedy that aspires to a much broader audience than director Bong has ever had before.

The film stars Robert Pattinson, an actor whose made it his absolute mission to cash in all his Twilight fame (and now, The Batman) to fund weirdo indies with legendary, sometimes iconoclastic filmmakers. But Mickey 17 is not a weirdo indie, but a Warner Bros funded blockbuster, even though his name is the most outwardly commercial thing about it. I respect Pattinson’s process, and it’s obvious that there are many good films that would have never been made if not for his involvement (including Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis and Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse). As an actor, I find him addicted to choices over characterizations, but he does occasionally arrive at some terrific (if unsubstantial) performances. I’d certainly count the role of Mickey Barnes as one of them.

Mickey is a well-meaning but dim man who falls into a bad debt with his friend, Timo (Steven Yeun), with a sadistic loan shark. They decide to board a ship destined for Niflheim, a desolate planet in perpetual winter. The mission is to colonize the planet and restart a failing humanity. The leader is a failed Earth politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo). Marshall is a broad, Trumpian figure, but (again) because this movie ended up released in 2025, he now simultaneously feels like a broad, Muskian figure. Desperate and not paying attention, Mickey signs up for the only job available: expendable. The position is so controversial, it’s not even legal on Earth and must be performed in outer space. Basically, Mickey’s body will be scanned and his memories stored, and his existence will henceforth be used for dangerous but important research. Should he die, the science team will be able to “re-print” a new version of Mickey with all his memories intact.

When we first meet Mickey, we are seeing (you guessed it) the seventeenth printed version. He’s been used to test the effectiveness of a new lethal nerve gas, to judge the toxicity of Niflheim’s air (it’s very toxic), and will later die a half a dozen times to prove the efficacy of a vaccine that can help humans breathe said toxic air. All the while, the results are recorded with fascinated detachment (Cameron Britten plays the head of the science team and has many of the film’s best line deliveries). By the seventeenth go around, Mickey is a bit resigned, if not all the way used to his job. When he falls through the ice during a new mission, he miraculously doesn’t break any bones, let alone die. Regardless, the team he’s with opts to leave him since he’s going to die anyway and get reprinted – not worth the risk of heading down the fissure. Especially with the presence of the large, grotesque “creepers”, who are sure to make a quick lunch of Mickey when they find him down there.

In a very Bong-ian twist, the ghastly space monsters of Mickey 17 are not only benevolent but cute. When they help Mickey leave the fissure, as opposed to eating him, he’s baffled. It’s the first time his life has been treated with any form of reverence since he boarded the ship. Back on board, he discovers something shocking: they prematurely re-printed him, and Mickey 18 is lying in his bed. “Multiples” is a major taboo in contemporary society, and their appearance means that all versions of the line should be executed. Add to that, this new version of Mickey is a harsher, more homicidal version, willing to kill off 17 in order to keep the Mickey line alive. This complicates life not only for Mickey, but for his girlfriend, the fun-loving but dedicated Nasha (a great Naomi Ackie). When the multiples are also spotted by security agent Kai (Anamaria Vartolomei), Mickey and Nasha’s situation becomes all the more tenuous.

The fate of the multiples ultimately gets entangled with Marshall’s egomaniacal Niflheim plans, as well as the diabolical efforts of Marshall’s wife Ylfa (Toni Collette, excellent as always), whose obsession with “sauces” hides something much more sinister. The creepers ultimately find themselves in the crosshairs of the Marshall regime, and the Mickeys must find a way not only to save themselves, but to save the indigenous species who thought enough of his life to save him. Such is the fashion of director Bong’s films, there is a lot going on. The violent treatment of the creepers reflects the animal rights stances from 2017’s Okja, while Mickey’s plight has some novel insight on the futility of “immortality”. Not to mention the send up on fascist figures who believe that escaping Earth means escaping humanity’s ultimate fate.

Usually director Bong has trouble taking a sensitive balance of all his many themes, at least, that’s the case in his other English-language films. Mickey 17 is a major step up in that regard, because director Bong (who also has sole credit on the film’s screenplay) understands that all these themes fall under the same umbrella of empathy. Empathy is a difficult sell these days, where it seems like the bad guys won (again) and this time they mean business. It’s pretty obvious that Mickey 17 was meant for a Biden administration. But as I’ve already said, I think the film’s skewering of capitalist society is much more potent in a Trump age (the same could be said of the success of Parasite), because director Bong cuts to the quick of Trumpism’s fatal flaw: they want to expand an underclass just to extinguish it – which will in turn collapse the ground under their feet.

So yeah, that is a form a nihilism, I guess. A science fiction premise that envisions salvation only coming after a population’s complete subjugation, a grim prospect that feels eerily prescient. But even in Parasite, director Bong gives us glimpses of humanity that keep the spirit alive; a dash of wishful thinking in an ocean of pessimism. I think Mickey 17 is a terrific film, its politics not exacting but unquestionably present. Its aspirations are for mainstream entertainment, and the performances from its cast gives us a specificity that is missing from many studio blockbusters. Do I think this will be the major box office cash cow Warner Bros expected? I reject the premise of the question. They gave an artist an opportunity on a large Hollywood scale, and he returned with something in conversation with his continued vision. Always a risk worth taking.

 

Written for the Screen and Directed by Bong Joon-ho